Durability Aspects of Rubbercrete Containing Nano Silica

Environmental problem has been arising due to the unregulated disposal of waste tires. Most of the used tires are accumulated and stored in the shops or dumped at the landfill or dumping site. The growing problem of used tires creates major health and environmental problem and concern for the people as it is non-biodegradable. In recent researches, most of the experiments are conducted on utilizing recycled materials in construction sector to reduce the environmental impacts. Research work on crumb rubber produced from waste tires as a partial replacement of fine aggregates in concrete mixtures has been studied and results showed that crumb rubber concrete improves thermal, acoustic and electrical properties as compared to conventional concrete. However, the compressive strength of crumb rubber concrete decreases with the increasing percentage of crumb rubber. Addition of Nano silica in concrete will be effective in enhancing the durability of concrete. In this report, the main objective is to identify the durability of crumb rubber concrete containing Nano silica. The project work involved preparing concrete cubes with dimensions of 100mm x 100mm x 100mm using 0% - 5% of Nano silica. Tests conducted in this research include 28 days compressive strength test, Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM) and Mercury Intrusion Porosimetry (MIP). It has been found out that the crumb rubber concrete containing Nano silica improved the compressive strength, porosity and interfacial transition zone of the rubbercrete.